My Life Story: A Coal Miner's Son

I was born in 1935 in a coal mining camp in Bibb County, Alabama, called Piper-Coleanor, back when the company doctor (W. E. Stinson) would come to your house and deliver your child for $15. That was during the Depression, and then came World War II. Most everyone was in poverty with no government programs. Later on, the government would give us limited rice, cheese, and beans to have something to eat. The hard times as youngsters gave us more ambition to come out of poverty as we got older. I am eighty-five years old and working five to six days a week. I have been a security guard at Mercedes Benz for eleven years and ten months, and I have only missed two days. We have eighty guards, and they say I am the most dependable guard they have.

by Bobby Whatley

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